New Space for Durational Art to Open in NYC
124June 17, 2025
Canyon, a new institution centering sound, video, and performance art, is set to open in New York in 2026. Conceptualized by MASS MoCA founding director Joe Thompson and philanthropist and art collector Robert Rosenkranz, Canyon will be housed in a 40,000-square-foot disused space inside the Essex Crossing complex on Delancey Street in Manhattan, near the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge. Designed by architecture firm New Affiliates, the institution will feature 18,000 square feet of exhibition space specially outfitted with state-of-the-art video-display capacity, a sixty-foot-tall skylit atrium for performances and gatherings, and a three-hundred-seat performance hall that will accommodate concerts, screenings, lectures, and podcast tapings.
Thompson will serve as Canyon’s director, while conservator and new media expert Cass Fino-Radin has been named director of art and technology, and curator, producer, and writer Sam Ozer will be curator-at-large. Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Rhizome, and the Archive of Contemporary Music (ARC) have been announced as long-term partners, with each awarded dedicated space within Canyon and contributing exhibitions and archive-based explorations of video, online art, and music. The exhibition program will change thrice yearly, with a retrospective of Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda and an expanded presentation of “Worldbuilding,” a group show organized by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and centering video games and contemporary art, inaugurating the institution. The performing arts programming (organized in part with independent curator and production company the Office) will include Laurie Anderson, Ella Bric, Eli Fola, William Kentridge, Trooko, Carrie Mae Weems, and ZZK Records, among others.
“We hope to create a new kind of cultural and social space—one designed to support the complexity and ambition of art rich with moving imagery, music and sound, while also rethinking how audiences engage with it,” said Thompson in a statement. “Canyon will focus on technical excellence and thoughtful presentation of important art, but it will also emphasize hospitality and atmosphere, which means comfortable, sociable viewing spaces that feel more akin to a living room than white cube. We will also provide immediately legible answers to the questions we’ve all had: ‘when does it start, how long does it last, and do I need to experience the piece from beginning to end, or can I come and go?’” Thompson said the institution aimed to engage as wide an audience as possible, “from art professionals to cultural tourists, to our Lower East Side neighbors and school children.”